PAHA News: January 2020

PAHA Awardees with the Board of Directors

During a well-attended Awards Ceremony held at the elegant ballroom of the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York, on Saturday, January 4, 2020, the following Awards were presented by PAHA's President Dr. Anna Muller and PAHA's Vice President, Dr. Marta Cieslak, assisted by Dr. Pien Versteegh, PAHA's Executive Director.

Marek Skulimowski, the KF President/Executive Director

The ceremony started from a welcome by Marek Skulimowski, President and Executive Director of the Kosciuszko Foundation, expressing delight about this renewed collaboration and hope for a variety of joint projects between PAHA and the KF in the future. Prof. Neal Pease, First Vice President of PAHA, discussed a history of the collaboration between PAHA and the Kosciuszko Foundation, and Prof. Anna Muller presented PAHA's achievements in the past year, and the role of PAHA Awards and Awardees in Polish and Polish American culture.

OSKAR HALECKI PRIZE FOR GRAZYNA KOZACZKA

Oskar Halecki Prize recognizes an important book or monograph on the Polish experience in the United States. The award was presented to Grażyna J. Kozaczka, Writing the Polish American Woman in Postwar Ethnic Fiction (Ohio University Press, 2019)

Kozaczka's book investigates the construction of Polish American womanhood in the fiction by Polish American authors of the second half of the 20th and early 21th centuries. It demonstrates how Polish American women writers have responded to the gender expectations of their communities, societies, and nations and how their heroines sought empowerment. One of the reviews calls it a unique scholarly work that "positions ethnic gender construction and performance at an intersection of social class, race, and sex."

Prof. Kozaczka with her Award

SWASTEK PRIZE FOR STEPHEN M. LEAHY

The Swastek Prize is awarded annually for the best article published during the previous year in a given volume of Polish American Studies, the journal of the Polish American Historical Association. This award, established in 1981, is named in honor of Rev. Joseph V. Swastek (1913-1977), the editor of the Polish American Studies for many years, and a past president of PAHA. It was presented to Stephen M. Leahy for his article “George Wallace and the Myth of the White Ethnic Backlash in Milwaukee, 1958-1964” (PAS 75, no. 2, Autumn 2018)

While the PAS Editorial Board members valued all of the contributions to volume 75, Stephen M. Leahy’s article “George Wallace and the Myth of the White Ethnic Backlash in Milwaukee, 1958-1964” (PAS 75, no. 2, Autumn 2018) has been selected for the Swastek Award for the best article in the 2018 volume of Polish American Studies. Leahy's article is a timely and careful analysis of the heated political atmosphere during the Civil Rights era. Leahy effectively questions the sweeping thesis that working-class Polish Americans were particularly receptive to Wallace's racist message in Milwaukee, WI. Leahy’s article is a fine example of meticulous research, which challenges a long-established opinion by cross-checking and triangulating a variety of sources. It offers a compelling political microhistory and it should have an impact on the historiography of race relations in twentieth-century America.

SKALNY CIVIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Skalny Civic Achievement Awards honor individuals or groups who advance PAHA's goals of promoting research and awareness of the Polish American experience and/or have made significant contributions to Polish or Polish American community and culture.

TEOFIL LACHOWICZ is a historian, archivist, journalist, and teacher with a long list of projects that all contribute to the popularization and preservation of Polish and Polish American experience in the US. Mr. Lachowicz is a historian and history teacher but his work includes also a wide variety of activities in the Polonia community. He has been an archivist at the Polish Army Veterans Association in America since 1998 and is also editor of the monthly "Weteran." He is an author of several works on military Polish American history and has also contributed to Polish American newspapers.

Dr. JOHN GUZLOWSKI, a former PAHA Board Member and Awardee, has published in a wide range of genres: poetry, prose, literary criticism, reviews, fiction and nonfiction. Born in a refugee camp in Germany after World War II, Guzlowski came to America with his family as a Displaced Person in 1951. His parents were Polish slave laborers in Nazi Germany during the war. In much of his work, Guzlowski remembers and honors the experiences and ultimate strength of these survivors. His critically acclaimed 2016 volume of poetry Echoes of Tattered Tongues is as beautiful as it is harrowing. He has also been able to weave the Polish American experience in his 2018 novel Suitcase Charlie. In his very frequent public speaking engagements with audiences of all sorts (academic, non-academic, all ages), he is promoting the experience of Polish immigrants in the post-WWII years and the generations that followed.

Geoffrey Gyrisco and Michael Retka.

SPENCER HOWE, STANISLAW POSZWA, GEOFFREY GYRISCO and MICHAEL RETKA are a team of scholars and activists spanning MN and WI who conduct research and community engagement efforts regarding the work of early 20th century Polish-American architect VICTOR CORDELLA, active in Minnesota. Fr. Spencer Howe and Fr. Stanislaw Poszwa represent the Holy Cross Church in Minneapolis, MN. Dr. Geoffrey Gyrisco is a resident of Madison, WI and Michael Retka resides in Little Falls, MN. Over the past two years they have come together to document Cordella’s extensive body of architectural design in Minnesota and Wisconsin and assess his lasting impact and influence on two dozen mostly Polish Roman and Eastern Rite Catholic communities. Cordella was a graduate of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts who immigrated to the US in 1893 and was in active architectural practice between the 1890s and mid-1930s. The list of the team’s achievements includes preservation, popularization, and academic efforts that highlight, investigates, and brings to the general and academic audiences Cordella’s legacy.

Norman Kelker accepts his award

AMICUS POLONIAE AWARD FOR DR. NORMAN KELKER AND JOANN FALLETTA

The Amicus Poloniae Award recognizes significant contributions enhancing knowledge of Polish and Polish-American heritage by individuals not belonging to the Polish-American community.

Dr. NORMAN E. KELKER has had a long career as a microbiologist. For many years now Dr. Kelker has been an active member of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America and a supporter of the Kosciuszko foundation. His interests in history and family history resulted in his many presentations. Most recently, Dr. Kelker presented his research on Ernestine Rose, a Polish Born Leader of the American Suffrage Movement and Herbert Hoover’s support for Poland. Dr. Kelker is a long-time friend of Poland and Polonia.

Dr. Kelker with his Award

The second Amicus Poloniae Awardee was JOANN FALLETTA. Ms. JoAnn Falletta, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra received the award for continuous support of Polish and Polish American composers and musicians. Falletta has led numerous projects and events that showcased Polish and Polish American composers as well as invited Polish musicians to play with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

PULA DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD FOR DR. IWONA KORGA

James Pula Distinguished Service Award is given to a member of PAHA who has rendered valuable and sustained service to the organization.

Dr. Iwona Korga, Executive Director of the Pilsudski Institute was nominated by several individuals and an excerpt from one nomination reads as follows: "For years she has been promoting Polish history and culture though both research and public programming as Executive Director of the Piłsudski Institute and more recently as a member of the Board of Directors of the Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union." Dr Ewa Hoffman Jędruch, who is a Board Member of the Pilsudski Institute received the award on behalf of Dr. Korga.

Dr. Hoffman Jedruch with Dr. Korga's Award.

ZURAWSKI PRIZE FOR BEST BOOK OR ARTICLE ON POLISH AMERICANS ON SCREEN

Joseph W. Zurawski Prize is awarded for the best article or book published on the topic of Polish American screen images in films or television presented to audiences in the United States and released by American companies.

Sonia Caputa for "Stereotypes of Polish American Women in American TV Series" from volume Histories of Laughter and Laughter in History, (ed. by Rafał Borysławski, Justyna Jajszczok, Jakub Wolff, Alicja Bemben), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016.

Dr. Puchalski with his Grant Certificate

YOUNG SCHOLAR TRAVEL GRANTS FOR AVRAMCHUK and PUCHALSKI

The Young Scholar Travel Grant ($500) supports a graduate student's/young scholar's participation in the PAHA upcoming annual conference.

OLEKSANDR AVRAMCHUK is a Ph.D. student at the University of Warsaw. He is currently writing a doctoral dissertation on the vision of Ukraine in Polish émigré historical thought in the United States during the Cold War. The scope of his academic interests ranges from Polish-Ukrainian relations to modern nation-building processes in Central and Eastern Europe. He is an author of several scholarly articles and essays on Polish, Ukrainian and Russian historical thought in the 20 th century, as well as the American attitudes toward Eastern Europe.

Dr. Puchalski and Mr. Avramchuk with their Grant Certificates.

DR. PIOTR PUCHALSKI of the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the time of award. Dr. Piotr Puchalski was born in Warsaw, Poland and moved to New York City at the age of thirteen. He attended high school in Brooklyn and earned Bachelor’s degrees in European Studies and French from New York University. When Piotr applied for this award, he was still a Ph.D. candidate in modern European history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since then, not only did he defend his doctoral dissertation but also accepted the position of assistant professor of history at the Institute of History and Archival Studies of the Pedagogical University of Cracow, where he currently lives.

The Awards Committee has decided not to award the Creative Arts Prize and the Haiman Award this year.